The Silicon Review

UPI surpassed 100 million users in India and aims to reach 500 million in three years

The Silicon Review05 November, 2019

In October one of the payments platform forged by India’s most prominent retail banks passed a billion transactions, it is considered as a milestone because it affirms the growth of services offered by the U.S. giants like Google, Walmart Inc., and Amazon. When the Indian government pushed demonetization in 2016, the Indian digital payments surged significantly because the country’s high-value notes were termed invalid. Three-and-a-half years later, the Unified Payments Interface or UPI has now crossed 100 million users because of booming smartphone usage and wireless data rates. Walmart-PhonePe, Google, and Amazon, along with other players in the market, aim to quintuple the transactions to $1 trillion by the year 2023.

Dilip Asbe, CEO of National Payments Corporation of India stated that UPI has the fastest acceptance rate, and it is not exclusive to payment platforms but digital platforms of any kind. He also aims to expand the UPI base to 500 million users by 2022. The open architecture of UPI allows payment banks, digital wallet apps, and startups to link to its platform easily. UPI has simplified transactions between banks and apps because they are linked through a biometric identification system. Every transaction is regulated by the Central bank, and it makes instant fund transfer between banks possible.